Brussels, July 28 – CAN Europe’s reaction to the US-EU trade deal announcement:
Esther Bollendorff, Senior Gas Policy Coordinator, CAN Europe: “The new US-EU trade deal is a dramatic U-turn on the European Commission’s and President Von der Leyen’s priorities from a couple of years ago: namely building a future proof European Green Deal based on climate ambition and rapid renewables build out. On the contrary, the $750 billion agreement with President Trump, works towards the opposite i.e. locking us into decades of fossil fuel dependency.
This trade deal merely serves to shift our dependency from Russian gas to fracked US LNG, which has a much higher methane footprint as conventional gas, and is directly undermining both the EU’s climate targets and the EU Methane Regulation.
It also implies tripling US LNG energy imports compared to the past year and dismissing existing contracts with other exporting countries to the EU such as Norway or Qatar. But most importantly this is completely at odds with past gas demand reduction of 20% documented over the last 2 years and projected reductions under REPowerEU and Fit for 55.
At a moment when we are witnessing the impacts of climate change across the EU from edge to edge, instead of shifting to real climate solutions and clean energy, we are walking into a dangerous substitution, deepening the crisis.”
For more information and media requests:
Marianna Plomariti, Communications Coordinator, marianna.plomariti@caneurope.org, +306908448316
